The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe pirate's gold

The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe pirate's goldThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The pirate's goldAuthor: Gordon StablesRelease date: July 13, 2024 [eBook #74032]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1904Credits: Al Haines, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE'S GOLD ***

This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.

Title: The pirate's goldAuthor: Gordon StablesRelease date: July 13, 2024 [eBook #74032]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1904Credits: Al Haines, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

Title: The pirate's gold

Author: Gordon Stables

Release date: July 13, 2024 [eBook #74032]

Language: English

Original publication: London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1904

Credits: Al Haines, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PIRATE'S GOLD ***

One fell dead, and another was shot through the shoulder.One fell dead, and another was shot through the shoulder.

BYGORDON STABLES, M.D., C.M.THOMAS NELSON AND SONS,Ltd.LONDON, EDINBURGH, AND NEW YORKPRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN ATTHE PRESS OF THE PUBLISHERS

Aprefaceto a story like the following is hardly needed; yet it is well the reader should know that the tale is not merely founded on fact, but nearly all fact.

The buried treasure was found in Amelia, an island off the coast of Florida, about the beginning of the present year; and I daresay that, although the first, I shall not be the last to weave a bit of romance around the strange, strange narrative.

GORDON-STABLES, M.D., R.N.

“Oh, would I were a boy again,When life seemed formed of sunny years,And all the heart then knew of painWas wept away in transient tears.”Sam. F. Smith.

IT was autumn—autumn, that is, as we reckon the seasons in the Scottish Highlands. For August was wellnigh at a close. The heather, it is true, still bloomed crimson and red on the mountain sides and the beautiful braes, but the days were now appreciably shorter, and hot though they might be during the day, soon after the sun went down,

“And left the red clouds to preside o’er the scene,”

the winds felt chilly, and sometimes a little raw.

This particular evening was no exception, anddarkness came on a full hour sooner, with no moon and never a star to light me from the hill where I had lingered, with my beautiful Gordon setter Dash, longer than usual. I did not care to return without a fairly good bag, and the birds on the bit of shooting I called mine were getting a little wild.

I was living with the minister of Glen T—— in Ross-shire. He was an old man, and did not care to go to the hill much himself. “The scenery all around,” he used to say smiling, “is good enough for me, and I mean to live and die here without ever leaving the glen again.”

Well might he have said the scenery was good enough for him. I have never seen wilder or more beautiful in any part of the world. Had you climbed a high hill, you would have said it was a chaos of mountains; but all between these were braes clad in silver drooping birch, with here and there a patch of dark and solemn pine wood, the abode of hawks and crows, with many a bird of prey besides. Higher up was the crimson heather, while patches of snow were to be seen in clefts and hollows highest of all, and this snow never left.

But it was the multitude of small lochs or lakes that would have struck you as most marvellous ofall. Not a glen that had not two or three of these, with perhaps silver streams between, and torrents or cataracts roaring down the mountain sides—the marvel being where the water came from. At times, indeed, it appeared to roll out of the very sky itself.

Well, it was late before I fired my final cartridge, and by a fluke, for I had not aimed, bagged my last bird.

Then Dash and I started on our long journey to the manse. Ten miles if a foot; but I knew the road well, and had known it from boyhood. I had been since then all over the world, and had more wild adventures than I may ever be able to describe in print; still I remembered the road, or—I believed I did. English fields and meadows may change in a few years into towns and streets, but the everlasting hills are the same for ages.

“Well, Dash, my boy,” I said, “I’m very hungry, whatever you may be.”

Dash wagged his flag of a tail to intimate that he too could do with a pick of something.

I petted and smoothed him.

“Dash,” I said, “there is a short cut across the hills and along the edge of cliff Eurna—a thousand feet perpendicular it is, Dash. It was here where ashepherd fell over after a sheep. But I’ve often skirted it in the dark, so don’t be afraid. Let us try. This will save us four miles, doggie.”

On we went now merrily enough, I singing to make the road seem shorter.

But it was getting darker and darker every minute. By the time we—that is, Dash and I, for I ever look upon a dog as a companion second only to a human being, and often far before one—reached Ault na Geoul, a wild, dark mountain stream that came roaring through a gorge not five hundred yards above, forming many a white and chafing rapid, and many a deep, dark pool, in which they said the kelpies[A]dwelt, night had so far fallen that scarcely could I see to gather a pocketful of round stones, the need for which will be seen presently.

It was just here where the short cut commenced, and once safely over the hill skirting one of the most dangerous cliffs in the Highlands, we should only have two miles further to walk.

We forded the stream, which was low at present, and soon after I found the little winding path, and we commenced the ascent.

The brae, and indeed all the hill, was covered withdrooping birch. There was not a star to be seen to-night, and clouds which must have been half a mile through hung low over the mountains. Not that we could see them. Oh no; so dangerously dark was it that if I stretched my gun straight out in front of me I could not see the muzzle.

You will now find out what was to be the use of the stones I had collected. You must know, then, that the little path through the birch wood led almost directly up a hill or brae fully one thousand feet high, and directly on to and at right angles to the edge of the fearful precipice I have already mentioned. It then turned off to the right. The capital letterTwill represent a plan of the situation. The shaft of the letter is the pathway leading upwards from the glen and the stream below, the upper or cross-bar is the edge of the perpendicular cliff, and close to this we must get before turning off to the right, and descending as near to the precipice edge as possible.

So long as the path led upwards I was safe enough, but by-and-by we were on level ground, and now the real danger commenced. We might walk straight over that black and fearful cliff.

In my boyhood’s days, myself and my companions,on many a dark, “mirk” night, had done as I was about to do now, and we never had an accident.

I could not have been more than from forty to sixty yards from the cliff edge, when I ordered Dash to keep close behind me. Then bending low to the ground, I threw a stone a few yards ahead of me, listening intently. I heard it fall on solid ground.

We cautiously advanced some distance, and I threw out another. That too I heard fall, and so did the third and fourth.

But the fifth made no sound.

We were close to the cliff, and it had gone over. I tried the experiment again and again to make sure; then turning directly off to the right, was overjoyed at finding the foot-way. In no part of the way down could we have been farther from this black, wet precipice than four or five yards. But the stones I threw kept us safe, and we were soon down and in a bonnie, bosky dell at the foot.

* * * * *

It has been my lot and luck in life, all through so far, to get every now and then mixed up with strange adventures. People who do me the honour to read my books often give me credit for an inventive faculty when no such credit is deserved.My drawers are filled with piles of old log-books detailing scenes and incidents that I have been mixed up in, so that I really have not to depend on imagination for my facts, as many other writers have. This is the advantage of having been a sailor, and of being still a wanderer and a rover. But little did I think to-night that my having taken that short cut would give me subject-matter for so strange—because true—a story as that which I am now writing.

Let me call the wooded dingle in which I now stood with dog and gun Glen Foogle, because that is not its name. It was a bonnie wee glen when I knew it before, and that was long, long ago. There were some green, cultivated fields here that were then let as a farm to old Donal’ Graat, who kept a few cows and a sheepie or two, and was content to live and die in that long, low, thatched hut, as his fathers had done before him.

The fields bordered a beautiful little loch of water, so brown that even the fish caught here were as red in flesh as a salmon, and many a dozen I had lifted out of it.

Clumps of dark pine trees and weeping birches were everywhere.

I had no idea that any great change had been made in this wee glen. I had heard that old Donal’ was dead, and that his son had grown up from a tow-haired, bare-headed, kilted laddie, to a tall and stalwart young man, and had enlisted into the “gallant Forty-twa;” but that was all.

In Tam o’ Shanter’s memorable ride

“As he frae Ayr ae nicht did canter,”

he was brought up with a round turn, as sailors would say, on nearing an old ruined church.

He was by this time

“Past the birks[B]and meikle[C]staneWhare drunken Charlie brak’s neck-bane:And thro’ the whins, and by the cairnWhare hunters fand the murder’d bairn;And near the thorn, aboon the well,Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel.Before him Doon pours all his floods;The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods;The lightnings flash from pole to pole,Near and more near the thunders roll;—When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze;Thro’ ilka bore [hole] the beams were glancing,And loud resounded mirth and dancing.”

Well, Tam o’ Shanter was in a state of very great astonishment indeed, and so was I as soon as I turned a corner and opened out the terrace or green platformon which Donal’ Graat’s old-fashioned Highland hut was wont to stand.

For a few moments I thought I must be dreaming. The little table-land above the loch had been transformed into terraced gardens, and these, at this moment, were all brilliantly lit up with coloured lights and pretty Chinese lanterns, that hung from the shrubs and trees, and waved gently too and fro on the soft summer’s air.

Above all was the broad and well-lit balcony of a villa, and from this resounded not mirth and dancing, but mirth and music.

I did just as Tam o’ Shanter did—and had it been a crime to have done so, I believe I should have done it just the same—

“I ventur’d forward on the licht.”

Yes, I opened the gateway near a little pier that jutted out into the loch, and went up one flight of broad steps after another till I stood close beneath the veranda, dog at heel and gun under my arm. Not until I felt the glare of the lamp-light on my face, and knew that every eye was bent upon me, did I recognize the fact that my presence here was really an unwarrantable intrusion.

Those on the veranda may be briefly described as follows, for they were not numerous:—There were first two or three ladies of uncertain age, one seated on a footstool, the rest on light chairs; there was a brown-faced, good-looking man of probably fifty years of age, evidently a sailor every inch, leaning back in an easy arm-chair, and with a very large meerschaum in his hand and mouth. Not far off stood a most beautiful young girl, of probably fourteen or fifteen, holding a violin which she had been playing; and near her feet, reclining on a Highland plaid, was a young fellow, certainly not twenty, fondling a guitar.

I felt, of course, that an apology was needed, and proceeded to make one, lame though it doubtless appeared.

“My friends,” I said, “when I tell you that I really have no excuse for intruding on your privacy, you will wonder why I am here. I shall retire at once when I inform you that long ago, before I went to sea, I used to reside with the minister of the strath beyond here. I have come back to pay him a visit. I was shooting to-day, and being overtaken by night, took the short cut home by the precipice side.”

“What!” exclaimed the gentleman, “you skirtedthat fearful precipice in the pitchy darkness that others are afraid to go near by day?”

“I’m an old mountaineer,” I said, and then described how I had managed safely and well.

“There used to be no house here,” I continued, “only an old hut; and when I came suddenly on a scene of light and loveliness, I just came up through the garden to see whether or not I was dreaming. And now good-night, friends.”

“Nay, nay,” cried the gentleman. “Even if you had not told me, I could have seen you were a sailor. We are just going to dine; you must join us.”

“I am dusty and not dressed.”

“The Highland dress is always dress.”

“But the minister! he will think I have met with an accident.”

“Mungo, our ghillie, shall run over to the manse and explain all.”

I laughed now pleasantly enough and consented to stay, for indeed I was both faint and hungry.

That was as nice a little dinner as ever I remember partaking of. The mountain trout from the loch beneath were far better than salmon. There was mountain mutton, too, that had been fed in the glen. The vegetables were delicious, and so too was the fruit.

I felt certain before an hour was over that I was in a fair way to become very friendly, not only with Captain Reeves himself, but with pretty little Mina Reeves and young Don Miguel M‘Lean.

A strange name, I must admit, but the lad himself was somewhat strange. His father—dead—was half a Spaniard; his mother—at this time living in the “Granite City”—was sister to Captain Reeves.

I will tell you, reader, more about Mina and Don Miguel in my next chapter.

Here let me say that I spent a most enjoyable evening. I am a very poor smoker, but my host’s cigars were so exceedingly mild that I could not help indulging in one at least.

This would not hurt a fully-developed man. It is to boys or young men that the too seductive weed proves so very harmful, weakening the nerves and rendering the heart as soft and flabby as that of a rabbit.

Many a story of his wild life at sea did the captain tell me, and naturally enough I was not far behind in spinning a yarn (true). Not only did Miguel himself and Mina sit near us, seemingly entranced, but the old maids of uncertain age as well.

Just once or twice did we break up to listen tothe Don’s guitar and the sweet, sad strains of Mina’s violin; then the instruments were laid aside for the night, and we were ordered to commence again.

“Why,” I cried at last, “it is long past ten!”

“Yes,” said Reeves, smiling; “but just keep your seat, for I sent word that you would not be home to-night.”

And really, reader, as I reseated myself I felt that I was not a bit sorry.

“Is there, for honest poverty,That hangs his head, and a’ that;The coward-slave, we pass him by,We daur be poor for a’ that!For a’ that, and a’ that,Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that;The rank is but the guinea stamp,The man’s the gowd for a’ that.”—Burns.

BRIGHT as the lark that rising from the dewy corn sings high at heaven’s gate were Mina and Miguel next morning at breakfast. Romantic language this may seem. Perhaps it is, only it suits me, and it suits the occasion.

Reeves, too, was pleasant and jolly; and I myself felt as happy as a sight of the Highlands in autumn never fails to make me.

Before bidding these good folks good-bye, I had to promise to come back—nay, not only that, but even to appoint the day.

When I told my friend the minister of my pleasantadventure, he said they had not been there very long. He was very old and somewhat stout, so had put off calling from week to week.

But on the very day after this he did get out his gig and pay them a visit of ceremony; and not only that, but invited the three to dinner.

“And,” he added, “I’m rather an old man, as you can see; and if I have one chief pleasure in life, it is music. Might I make so bold as to request this young lady and gentleman to bring their instruments with them?”

The young lady and gentleman would be delighted. And so now introductions were complete; and soon the most perfect and home-like friendship reigned between the manse and The Cañon, as the glen villa was called.

But for his daughter Mina, Captain Reeves would have been a somewhat lonely man, despite the beauty of his gardens and all his wild and romantic surroundings, for his wife had been dead now for some years. He had formerly resided in Aberdeen; but his health breaking down temporarily, he had come here, and was already as well as ever he had been in his life, so strong and life-giving are the breezes that blow over the Highland hills.

* * * * *

I have no great desire to describe little Mina’s beauty, though in my eyes she was very charming indeed. But there are different tastes in beauty, just as there are in straw hats or fancy waistcoats. If the reader, then, wonders what Mina was like, let him just imagine to himself the loveliest and most innocent-looking girl he happens to know, and let her pose as Mina.

Of course she and I became great friends, because, whatever else I may be, I am always frank; and I do think children like frankness. Well, I am alwaysfrankand I am alwaysmerry.

But Don Miguel’s story is a somewhat strange though not a very unusual one away up north, and I may best tell it briefly here.

I may say this, to begin with, that there really is a kind of freemasonry between sailors, else why should Reeves have told me poor Miguel’s history after only a fortnight’s acquaintance?

I may mention, too, that the nephew himself had gone away—I shall tell you whither presently. I happened to see the parting betwixt him and bonnie wee Mina, and it was indeed a sorrowful one.

She hung around his neck in anabandonof childish grief and tears.

“O don’t go, Miggie—don’t go! I cannot let you leave me!”

And the lad, with tears in his dark eyes, had really to tear himself away.

Even Reeves himself was affected.

I do not remember ever before having met so happy and bright a young fellow as Miguel. He was very good-looking, rather tall, and though somewhat slender to suit a Highlander’s taste, supple and energetic beyond compare.

At the university (Aberdeen) he excelled in all sports that required more agility than strength. He never went in for wrestling, putting the stone, or hammer-throwing. But in racing he needed handicapping. No one was in it with him at the running-high-leap. Sometimes, when sudden “funk” seized him just as he approached the bar, he ran right through under it laughing, and without even bending his neck. But he returned immediately and took it like a hero.

He was, moreover, a fairly good bagpiper, having once come in second at a meeting where some Gordon Highlanders competed. People said his legs were the best of him. He had a good “sonsy” calf, and could not have got inside those ridiculous leatherdrain-pipes that English mashers wear. Consequently he looked well in the kilt, and wherever he choose to compete, he took first prize in Highland dancing.

Miguel was a capital linguist, talking Spanish and French as easily as English.

But I am sure it was as a humorous conversationalist that he excelled.

No matter what kind of company he happened to be thrown into, Miguel kept them laughing just all the time. It was worth walking twenty miles just to hear him talk. And, mind, there was no braggadocio about him, very little anecdote either; if he did throw in a story now and then, he did so half-apologetically. It interrupted the flow of conversation, he used to remark.

Perhaps I ought not to say just here that Miguel was in every way a gentleman; I ought rather to let his doings prove it. Well, pardon me.

It was one beautiful day, when Captain Reeves had gone high up among the mountain tops in search of ptarmigan, that he told me something concerning the poor fellow’s life.

“Yes,” he said, “Miggie, as Mina calls him, is very, very merry in company, but I can assure you that hehas his melancholy moments when alone. For although his mother and he were both in comfortable circumstances before his father’s death, they are terribly badly off now.

“It is not an uncommon story theirs. Mr. M‘Lean, my brother-in-law, was a retired advocate, and the little family lived in a most charming villa in the west-end suburbs.

“It was indeed strange that an advocate should have put all his eggs in one basket, so to speak; but like many hundreds, he had the most perfect faith in the L——r Society, its interest and its dividends, and all his savings were locked up therein.

“The society came down, as we all know, with a terrible crash, scattering its members broadcast through the land—well-to-do one day, beggars and paupers the next.

“It was far more than my poor brother could stand. The beautiful villa was given up, and its furniture sold, nothing more being left than just sufficient to furnish two rooms and a kitchen in a poorer district of the town.

“Then the poor fellow sickened and died.

“Miguel had already secured the degree of M.A. from the university, and was in his first year’s studyof divinity when the crash came and his father died.

“‘Mother,’ he had said, ‘I shall now give up all idea of the church, much as I should like to be a minister, and become a schoolmaster. I thus can keep you, and we may be happy yet in a humble way.’

“But his mother answered, ‘No, no, no, boy mine. I can do something with my needle, and brother has promised to help us a little every week. You must study on till you become a minister, and I feel sure God has your church waiting for you somewhere.’

“Heigh-ho!” continued Captain Reeves, “I am but poor myself at present, though I think there is a silver cloud looming in the distance—but hereby hangs another tale. I am poor, you see; but mind you, that Miguel is not only poor, but proud as well.

“But it is genuine pride, and I believe you will like the young fellow better when I tell you that he is in my view a hero.

“During the divinity session a student who desires to enter the Established Church, and to make a good show before the examiners, has hard work enough infollowing out his studies, which as a rule are as dry as dust.

“But Mig adds considerably to his income, pays his fees, keeps himself in clothes, and is able to purchase his mother many a little luxury by teaching music and languages all the weary winter through, and during a part of the early summer also.”

“Brave boy!” I cried; “he is indeed a hero!”

“Ah! but wait a wee,” said Reeves; “this is not all.”

“No?”

“No, indeed; the greatest heroism is to come. Mind you, I would not care if he stayed here during the long vacation. Limited though my means are, I should not miss his food.

“But here again his pride comes in, and what do you think he has been doing during the last two months or over?”

“I fear I could not even guess.”

“Well, he has been engaged in the herring fishery at Peterhead.”

I could not help smiling.

“It is dangerous work, is it not?” I said.

“Ay, that it is, sir. It is all very well and very gay on a fine night when only a gentle breeze is blowing, and the fish seem verily eager to be caught.But ah! when a storm arises, when nets are rent in twain, when the fleet is scattered—all that can’t get speedily into harbour—and driven out to sea, then the danger is indeed great and the sufferings too.

“After a storm like this many a widow and many a fatherless bairn are left to mourn for those they will never, never see again.

“Even at the herring fishery my nephew, I am proud to say, makes himself a general favourite. He is the life and soul of his own crew; but curiously enough, the ‘young minister,’ as he is always called, assembles a crowd around him every evening on the beach, and gives a lecture that causes all hands to laugh, so that sometimes he has to wait for over a minute before he can be heard again.

“But on Sunday afternoon you would not know him to be the same man; for now he gives a sermon, and a most truthful and earnest one it is.

“Just before he left this season, an old Skyeman sent round a bag and collected a little over seven pounds for the ‘young minister.’”

“How exceedingly kind!” I said.

“Yes, and he dared not offend them by refusing.

“He just made them a little speech in gratitude, and he assures me that all the time he was speaking the tears were chasing each other adown his cheeks.”

“I cannot wonder,” I said.

“And now,” I added, “where is he off to?”

“Ah! there you have another example of his pluck and his pride,” said Captain Reeves. “He has taken a harvest; with his wages from that, and with what he made at the herring fishery, he says he will be quite opulent all winter.”

“Poor young fellow!” I remarked, “he seems hardly strong enough to wield a scythe.”

“True; but Miguel is wonderfully wiry. It is the nerve and the heart that keep young men like him up.”

“Certainly,” I said; “and luckily, as it seems, he is not ashamed of honest labour.”

“No true-hearted, no real man is ever ashamed of hard work or poverty either. It is young men like Miguel that keep this great world of ours for ever moving onward, to better things I hope and pray.”

Instead of going directly home to the manse to-night, I went to The Cañon with Captain Reeves.

There was no one here this evening save little Mina, and she and I became greater friends than ever.She even told me how old she was, seeming rather proud than otherwise that she had reached the patriarchal age of fifteen. The illuminations in the grounds on the night of my first appearance were in celebration of her birthday.

She took me quite into her confidence, as children often do, and went so far as to tell me that when Cousin Miguel got a beautiful parish and a nice church he was going to get married.

“Marry you, Mina?”

She hung her head a moment, and her pretty face was suffused with blushes. But she looked up frankly enough next minute, and said naïvely,—

“Oh, I don’t know at all, you know. Only if he marries some one else, I shall see him nearly always just the same, and be his sister like.”

I laughed a little. I knew more of the world than poor Mina.

* * * * *

That six weeks spent at the manse and on the hills formed, I think, one of the most pleasant holidays ever I have spent in life.

It was such a change from the intense and toilsome drudgery of the pen; but little did I know what it was going to lead up to.

That troubled me little just then at all events.

We boated and fished one day; we went to the hills another.

Mina went with us on almost every occasion. She was a strong and wiry little Highland maiden, as well as beautiful. I must say that she could fish as well as either Captain Reeves or I, and had a neat little gun with which she could bring down her bird on sight.

The birds were now getting wild and scarce, however, but the scenery and the delightful fresh air were worth a king’s ransom. I felt getting stronger every day, and I was now sun-browned as to knees and face. And only healthy men do tan.

Well, on these shooting excursions there was invariably a good lunch-basket to fall back upon. This was carried by the pony, which we made Mina mount and ride whenever she looked in the least degree tired.

The pony was led by a bare-legged, ragged-kilted ghillie. I used to wonder how he escaped sunstroke or the bite of an adder; for he wore no cap, and I have seen him crossing a piece of withered grass in which the snakes were wriggling and racing in every direction.

But Kennie had no fear.

When I had been little over a month in the strath, seeing the captain almost every day, both at the manse and at his own house, he told me a story that made me stare in astonishment, and believe myself back once more in the old, old days of romance, and of wild adventure by sea and land.

“Strange—that where Nature loved to trace,As if for gods, a dwelling-place,And every charm and grace hath mixedWithin the paradise she fixed,There man, enamoured of distress,Should mar it into wilderness,And trample, brute-like, o’er each flower,That tasks not one laborious hour.”—Byron.

IT was one bright, beautiful afternoon, when we were alone together, far away on a lonesome, heather-clad hill-top. It was a hill that, south of the silvery Tweed, would have been called a mountain, yet as regards height was nowhere amid the chaos of giants with which it was everywhere surrounded.

This hill, however, was beautifully encrimsoned with heath and heather. The former floated over the rocks in vast red sheets: the latter, more sturdy and strong, looked boldly upwards to face the sunlit sky.

Far down beneath us we could see many a loch, and around each were the everlasting banks of silvery-stemmed, drooping birch-trees.

The sun himself was already declining in the west, and a gentle breeze was stirring the heather. It had been a hot day, and somewhat uneventful as regards sport, and as we lay here on a patch of moss, we conversed somewhat languidly; albeit Reeves had lit that wondrous meerschaum of his, and—just for once in a way—I had “bent” a cigar.

“Gordon,” said the captain at last, taking the pipe from his lips for a moment and glancing towards me—“Gordon, in you I think I have found a friend.”

“I am certain,” I answered, “that if I can be of service to you, you have only to ask me.”

“And a man,” he added, “that can be trusted with a secret.”

I laughed lightly.

“Am I not like yourself, a sailor?” I said. “I have never, however, gone secret-hunting; yet when such a thing came my way, I have always cherished and respected it. A secret belongs to the other fellow, not to you, and if you happen to have it in your possession, you have no more right to give it awaythan you would have to sell his watch, if he had lent you that.”

“My own sentiments to a ‘t.’ Well, that which I am about to tell you no one at present knows anything about, except Miguel. He is in the swim, and will join me, and I trust that you too will when you have heard all.”

“It is,” he added, “a story of buried treasure.” He glanced half uneasily around him as he spoke, as if afraid that even the curlews had ears, and could understand his story.

“Buried treasure?” I said, somewhat astonished, but probably doubtingly; “why, that sounds interesting. But—”

“If we can only find it,” he went on, as he gazed dreamily away over the landscape of hill and dell, of crimson and green. “If we could but find it, we—I and Mina and my sister—should be no longer poor, while brave young Miguel should be able to continue and finish his studies without further toil, or the terrible hardship of the herring fishery and harvesting.”

He seemed speaking just then more to himself or to Dash, on whose beautiful head his hand was placed, than to me. Then after a few moments’ silence and a sigh or two, he turned once more round.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but for the moment I believe, so absorbed was I in my own thoughts, that I forgot your presence. But now I shall speak.

“You are doubtless sceptical concerning this buried treasure,” he continued.

“I fear so,” I replied, smiling.

“Well, but you will not be so when you hear my yarn. Moreover, you will agree with me that it is not any one else’s gold we—and the ‘we’ must include you, my valued friend—are going in search of. No, it is my own and that of Miguel—in other words, that of our dead-and-gone forbears, or ancestors.”

“And you don’t think it will be a wild-goose chase?”

“On the contrary,” Captain Reeves replied, with a considerable amount of energy, “it will be a dead certainty.”

“But listen, if you will; it is quite a long time before sunset yet, and I am tired of wandering after these half-scared ptarmigan and grouse.”

He took from his pocket some papers as he spoke, and began turning them over.

“These sheets,” said Reeves, “which are but clean copies of the time-worn ones I have in my possession at home, date back, as far as I can find out, for about twohundred years. These papers are, in reality, excerpts from the log of my ancestor, a Spaniard of the name of Miguel Bassanto.

“They are without consecutive dates, and it is my own impression that they were written after and not during the terrible adventures and wild, stormy voyages in which he took part.

“I may tell you at once that his life at sea was intimately connected with that of several pirates, but notably that of Morgan.

“Let him speak for himself. I have changed the style of English, however.

“‘When I landed from a small trading sloop at the English port of Bristol,’ he says, ‘all my worldly goods were contained in a bundle slung over my shoulder on a stick. I was but fifteen years of age, though strong and wiry. I was very innocent too.

“‘Not very many weeks before this I had bidden farewell to a loving mother and a dear little sister, whom, alas! as things turned out, I was doomed never, never to see again. We had been very well-to-do when I was younger, but misfortunes had overwhelmed us after my dear father ventured on speculations. Then grief brought about his end.

“‘Work of a remunerative kind I failed to find inCadiz. But I met one evening some young English officers, and naturally they praised their own country. “No one could starve in Britain,” they said. Here were food and work for all. And they were kind enough even to arrange for my passage.

“‘Well, I had enough money to last me in a humble way for many months. I obtained lodgings down near the docks, and every day I set out to look for work.

“‘Ah! all in vain.

“‘I wandered far away one afternoon, up and on to a beautiful though somewhat dreary table-land.

“‘The time was spring. There were May trees growing here and there, snowed over with blossom, and in these sang the blackbirds and the thrushes, oh, so soothingly. High up against a little fleece of a cloud was a dark little dot—a lark that poured its notes earthwards; notes of melody that made me think the little bird was almost bursting with the wild joy it could not suppress. But sweeter far to me was the song of the rose-linnets, low and beautiful, that perched upon the banks of golden gorse which here and there hugged the ground, perfuming the air all around with their delicious breath.

“‘I was really feeling happy, though somewhatlonesome, and I believe I had almost fallen asleep, when slowly across the upland I saw a young fellow coming towards me.

“‘He quite unceremoniously threw himself down within a couple of yards of the spot where I lay.

“‘“Well, comrade,” he said, “you look as if you were in the same fix as myself.”

“‘He was very gentlemanly, and evidently of good family.

“‘“I don’t know,” I answered, in as perfect English as I could command, “what manner of fix yours may be, but I came to your England to look for work, and I can’t find any.”

“‘He lowered his brow half angrily for a moment or two before replying.

“‘“It isn’t my England. Henry Morgan is my name, and I am a Welshman. The English never did us any good, and I just hate them. Only I quarrelled with my people, and have come here to begin the world on my own account.”

“‘“And will you succeed?” I asked eagerly.

“‘“Oh, I am sure to,” he answered, laughing; “but, mark me, never in England. Listen. Far, far beyond the seas, an old sailor captain who used to visit our house has told me, there lies an island belonging tothe Windward group in the West Indies. It is far more beautiful than even a dream of fairyland. It is covered with mountains and forests, with silver lakes and glittering streams. But the hills are not like our wild, barren hills in Wales, for they are green-wooded to their very summits; while on the lower grounds there are splendid savannahs, and whole forests of fruit-trees, and spices rich and rare; the cocoa-nut palms wave their fringy summits in the blue sky, as if offering a banquet to the gods; guavas grow here, and around the shores groves of delicious bananas, while hardly can you walk through some parts of the island for the pine-apples that impede your progress with their thrice-fragrant fruit.

“‘“Although frequent wild storms rage across this land of delight, they serve but to make one enjoy nature all the more, when they pass away and all is again serene and quiet.

“‘“It is an island of flowers, too, whose perfume and beauty no language of mine can do justice to. But they grow and climb and trail everywhere, those sweet and lovely flowers. Then all around the island are snow-white or silvery sands, and still a little distance further off beds of beauteous coral and marine gardens, so gorgeous in colouring that the sailors believe thesea-fairies wander here when the moon’s pale light pierces the water and gladsome stars are shining high in heaven’s blue. And this is Barbadoes.”

“‘My newly-found friend paused, and I sighed.

“‘“Why sighest thou?” he said.

“‘“Your description,” I replied, “has quite entranced me; but, ah me! fain though I should be to go to so lovely an isle as this, I have no money to take me.”

“‘Young Morgan laughed right merrily.

“‘“Neither have I,” he said. “My pockets are almost empty; for though my people are well-to-do, when I quarrelled I was too proud to ask them for a coin. No, I am going out to Barbadoes to make my own fortune. It is all arranged, and we sail in five days. To pay for my passage I work on board ship, and for a few months for nothing on a farm out there. Why don’t you come along too? I like you, and we should be good friends.”

“‘I jumped at the idea.

“‘We shook hands on the spot.

“‘Then together we walked towards the docks, and boarded the great ship. She had three enormous masts, a very high poop and forecastle, and was also high out of the water.

“‘Yes, I was speedily engaged; for labour in Barbadoes was in great demand.

“‘Just a fortnight after this we were speeding away over the broad Atlantic, westwards and south, before the breath of a favouring breeze.

“‘I thought now that there was nothing like the ocean. How clear and bright the sky was! how healthful the breeze! And the great blue waves themselves seemed to rear their sparkling heads and toss their white manes in veritable pride and gladness. The waves sang to the sunlight; the sunlight kissed the waves.

“‘We saw many strange, mysterious beasts and fishes. Some were mighty in their strength beyond credence; others, that on moonlight nights reared horrid heads and necks high above the ship, looked like fiery-eyed fiends; and the men, affrighted, rushed below, or lashed themselves with rope-ends to capstan or winch, lest the awful apparition might seize and bear them away.

“‘But notwithstanding all this, and notwithstanding the length of the voyage—which, as we were often driven back by storms, and often becalmed for many days at a time, extended to months and months—both Morgan and myself were very happy.

“‘He was a good boy then; alas that he should have turned out so terrible a man years and years after this! But now morning and evening found Morgan on his knees; and he used to tell me that God was his greatest friend, and prayer his greatest comfort.

“‘We reached Barbadoes at last, and found this sunny isle of the sea everything that Morgan’s friend had described it to be.

“‘We worked out our time quietly enough, and although we got no pay, we were well fed, and everything went pleasantly.

“‘Then we were free, and soon obtained work from the planters. We were well paid now, and led a comfortable, happy life; and so here we dwelt for years.

“‘Morgan and I considered ourselves men by this time, But I could note that he was restless.

“‘“My dear Bassanto,” he said to me one day, “this is an enjoyable enough life, but it isn’t making wealth. I shall run over to Jamaica, and see if I can better my condition. If I can, don’t be afraid that I won’t come back for you.

“‘“But,” he added, “I think a roving sea-life will suit me better than anything else.”

“‘“So be it,” I said.

“‘Then we parted.

“‘I never expected to see Morgan again: far better for my peace of mind that I never had seen him more.

“‘Now at this time there was peace between Britain and Spain—peace, but no good-will. The British hated the Dons, and many cruisers were fitted out by private individuals to prey upon their commerce, and rob their ships of their golden doubloons—for the Spaniards were rich. These adventurers the British smiled upon, and really encouraged. They were pirates in reality, but so long as they confined their attention to Spanish vessels they were not molested.

“‘Well, a whole year and a half passed away. One evening, as I was returning from the plantation, I heard a shout, and next moment Morgan himself and two armed men—who looked to me like man-o’-war sailors—stood before me.

“‘“Hurrah, Bassanio! hurrah, my merry, merry friend! behold, I have not forgotten you.”

“‘Morgan was dressed almost like an admiral, with sword by his side and pistols in his belt.

“‘We shook hands, and down we sat “to swap yarns;” and though I had little or nothing totell, Morgan’s adventures had been of the very wildest.

“‘But, alas! I could not help noticing that there was a something wanting in the Morgan who now sat beside me. Reverence for things good and eternal seemed banished; the young man was reckless, and appeared proud of it, while his conversation was such as almost made my blood run cold to listen to.

Back to Index Next